The Wasteland
by Phoenix Moon 13
Summary: Post Human Nature/The Family of Blood. Because some things are so painful, so big, they echo across universes...
1. Rose

_**The Wasteland  
**_**Chapter One: Rose**

Author's Note: This is sort of a companion to _Proof _in that it deals with the division of Rose and the Doctor, but it's much longer. It's specifically set five years after their last meeting at Bad Wolf Bay at the end of _Doomsday. _The only spoilers for after that are for _Human Nature _and _The Family of Blood_, because that's what this is based on. Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

April is the cruellest month, breeding  
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
Memory and desire.

- _The Wasteland  
_  
by T.S. Eliot

* * *

Jackie Tyler caught a virus the days before her son's first day at school. Pete was busy at Torchwood and Josh was determined not to go with anyone else but Rose – or "Wose," as he still occasionally insisted on calling her.

In the playground, with the grit digging into her knee, Rose straightened Josh's little tie and smoothed his shirt, chanting out all the things he needed.

"Pencil case? Sharpener? Rubber? Lunch box? Reading book? Bottle?"

Josh nodded, his fluffy strawberry blonde hair wafting up and down.

"Are you coming to get me?"

"Yes, I'll be here. You'll be good, won't you? And maybe we'll pick up some sweets on the way home."

"Can't I stay home? I think I might have sniffles."

"No, Josh. Mummy's ill and Daddy's at work."

"You're home." There was a note of accusation in his voice.

"It will be fun, I promise."

"So, you're one of the new boys, are you?"

The blood in Rose's veins didn't freeze or even chill – it stopped. Her fingers clenched on Josh's tie and her eyes swam… _"Take me back!"_ She didn't even consider that she could have made a mistake. That voice, that jovial tone - it was unmistakable and it terrified her.

"'Lo" Josh looked up at the tall man and pushed at Rose's fingers. "Rose, you're hurting."

"Sorry," she muttered. "Sorry, Joshie."

She was shaking, finding it difficult to stand; her leg seemed to have gone dead.

"You all right, there? Here, let me help," she felt his hand under her elbow and was hauled to her feet and turned towards him. She kept her eyes low, focusing on the tiny stones that had stuck to one knee of her tights. He still hadn't let go of her elbow. "Occupational hazard, that. Are you all right?"

She looked up finally, meeting his eyes. It was like a punch to the stomach because he was the image of the Doctor. The very image of him. He was tall, slender, with ruffled brown hair and brown eyes. They even crinkled at the edges in the same way and when he smiled at her, the edges swooped up on both sides of his nose, like a cartoon character. And there wasn't the vaguest glimmer of recognition.

"Hello. I'm Mr Smith. I think I'll be teaching your…" he paused slightly, waiting for her to fill in the blank.

"Brother," she blurted. "He's my brother. My mum's sick. Dad's at work. He's a bit nervous."

"Ah, I see. And what's your name?" he let go of Rose and crouched down in front of Josh. His lanky frame collapsed in awkward angles – long bent legs and arms crooked on his thighs.

"Josh."

"Josh Tyler?" Josh nodded sullenly. "Ah. Well. If you want, your sister can come in for a little while. You can show her the classroom."

Josh's face lit up and he looked up hopefully at Rose who was still staring at Mr Smith's profile.

"Wose?" he seemed to have forgotten that in the presence of unknown grown-ups, she was never 'Wose.'

"I can't," she said. "I have… work."

She bent down to Josh, who was wild-eyed with fear and pulled him slightly away from the teacher. She hung on to his little arms and kissed his head.

"I'll bring you jelly snakes, Joshie. I promise. But you have to be brave. Really brave."

"Brave like the Doctor?" he whispered.

Rose gulped and nodded.

"Like the Doctor."

Mr Smith had stood up slowly, stretching up to his full height and retreating back. She could almost feel him frowning over her shoulder.

"Wose, I don't have a sonic screwdriver."

"You don't need one, Josh. Because it's not like my stories, all right? It's lovely. There are other children and football, you like football and I'm rubbish, aren't I? And you get to draw. It's just different, that's all. It's new."

"And no monsters?"

"No monsters. None whatsoever," she glanced back at Mr Smith who was watching awkwardly. "I'm sorry, Mr Smith, but I really have to go."

"No problem," he flashed her a grin and extended his hand to Josh. She blinked away that memory of him extending his hand to her at Christmas, standing in the snow-ash of the Sycorax. "I'm not scary, am I, Josh?"

Josh frowned, his lips pouting slightly.

"No," he answered. "You're nice."

"See? Everything's all right, Miss Tyler."

"Rose," she gasped. "Please. Call me Rose."

There was a slight crease between his eyebrows then and for an insane moment she thought he recognised her. But it was gone as quickly as it came and he just gave her that cartoon smile instead.

"James," he said simply.

* * *

It was Jackie who met Mr Smith next. She took her son to school the next morning and when the teacher turned towards her, her bag dropped to the floor and she clutched at one of the low tables.

"Josh's mum?" he asked. "Your daughter said you were ill. I hope you're feeling better?"

He scooped up her bag and handed it to her. She was shaking, her mouth opening and closing.

"Just a bit dizzy, D – Mr Smith. It is Mr Smith, isn't it? That's what Josh said."

"Yes, Mr Smith. Perhaps you'd better be getting home, Mrs Tyler. You're white as a sheet."

"Yes, Doc – Mr Smith. I'll go. His dad will pick up him up. You'll be good, won't you, Josh? Be a good boy for mummy."

She patted his head absently and gave him a quick kiss. She sat at the wheel of her car for a long time before pulling away and driving home. When she got there, Rose was in the kitchen.

"You could have warned me, Rose."

"You saw him then?" Rose sighed, turning from the counter, stirring her coffee. "I hoped you'd miss him."

"Rose, he's –"

"He's James Smith, Mum. Not the Doctor."

"What's this about the Doctor?"

Pete Tyler was lounging in the kitchen doorway, a navy dressing gown – too short in the arms – belted loosely over his pyjamas.

"Josh's teacher is the Doctor," Jackie said.

Pete glanced at Rose, who was still slowly stirring her coffee.

"Rose?"

"He's not the Doctor, Dad. He's just a guy. A teacher. Josh's teacher. He looks like him, that's all."

"That's all? Looks like him? Pete, he's the spitting bloody image! He's his clone, I'm telling you."

"He can't get through," Rose said patiently. "Not properly. It's not him. This is a parallel universe, Mum. It's not so strange when you think about it."

"But –"

"Leave it, Jacks."

"Pete –"

"Have a lie down. You look done in," he touched his wife's elbow and gave her that little frown, cocking his head back towards the stairs. Jackie sighed and glanced at Rose.

"All right. I think maybe I do need a lie down. I feel ever so queasy with it."

Pete watched her go, then studied Rose for a moment. She had stopped her slow stirring and was now sipping the coffee as if nothing had happened.

"Rose, are you sure you're ok?"

"It was a shock. You know, five years since I last saw him and suddenly there he is. Right down to those freckles he has, the ones you don't see them unless you're close up. But it's not him, Dad. I know that. But, if you don't mind, I don't want to go back there for a while. Not 'til I get used to the idea."

"'Course. C'mere, love. Your mum doesn't mean to go off on one like that. It's the shock. You don't have to go near the place."

"Thanks, Dad."


	2. James

**_The Wasteland  
_Chapter Two: James**

* * *

And I will show you something different from either  
Your shadow at morning striding behind you  
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;  
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

- _The Wasteland_

by T.S. Eliot

* * *

James was peering over Josh's shoulder. Josh had his tongue pressed between his lips as he carefully coloured in the tip of – well, James wasn't sure what it was. Because it was some sort of grey stick and the tip of it Josh was colouring in the brightest blue he could find in the crayon box. It was vaguely familiar, but James couldn't quite place it. He bent down between Josh and the little girl sitting beside him.

"What's that, Josh?"

"It's me."

"So it is. But what's that you're holding?"

Josh fidgeted a little, twisting the crayon in his fingers. He shrugged a little bit and pulled his drawing closer.

"A wand."

"A wand? It's a funny sort of wand, isn't it? Look, you've made it look like the end is glowing."

"It's a wand. Wands glow."

"They do. I've never seen one glowing blue before though."

Josh dropped the blue crayon and snatched up a black one, drawing a large speech bubble near the mouth of the drawing.

"How do you spell _expelliarmus_, sir?"

* * *

Rose had been wrong when she thought James Smith didn't recognise her. Something nagged in the back of his mind about this girl. He found her very hard to forget and would scan the gaggle of parents from his classroom door for her every morning and every afternoon, but he never saw her again. The most he saw of her was in Josh's pictures, with yellow hair and a large toothy smile, generally dressed in some bright colour or another. It got to a point where he spent break-times, when he wasn't on playground duty, gazing at the pictures of Rose Tyler on his walls. He didn't figure it out until Christmas. She was still a bright edged memory and it was on the night the snow came that he realised why she was familiar.

He was browsing his bookshelves for something to read, skimming his fingers along spines as bright and shiny as hard-boiled sweets. Others were cracked and white. Only one was leather bound, his Great-Grandfather's old journal – his _Journal of Impossible Things_ – and settled down on his sagging corduroy sofa to read.

When it grew dark, he didn't move to turn the light on, but adjusted his position to read by the orange glow of his electric fire, turning a page as he did so. And there, lit orange, was a ghost of a picture. A face half-captured, half forgotten and yet he knew it to be Rose Tyler.

His Great-Grandfather had a knack for drawing and his journal had been James's favourite storybook as a child, but it was the other drawings that caught his interest, the blue box, the sonic screwdriver. He had never noticed the faces, certainly never paid much attention to this face, especially not when she faded out of the story so completely

He traced his finger over the page. The paper was bumpy where the wet ink had dried and she was only half there – as though she had been nothing but a brief memory, but something his Great-Grandfather had wanted to hang on to. For some reason, James understood that. He would have wanted to hang on to her too.

The next day was the school nativity and Rose was sat in the front row, between her parents, grinning at the second shepherd to the left, whose tea towel was sliding off his head over his eyes.

After the play, behind the little curtain, James was trying to tug off the tea towel without pulling Josh's hair. He sighed and began to pick at the knot in the ribbon that bound it to his head. Behind him, he heard the curtain rings rattle.

"Caroline, do you think you could undo this, I'm having no luck at all."

But when he looked round, it was Rose, not the elderly teacher in the classroom next to his.

"Oh. Rose. Miss Tyler. I'm just trying to find your brother, he seems to have gone missing."

She smiled shyly and reached for the knot, sliding her nails into the creases to work it open.

"You all right in there, Josh?"

"Yes. I didn't miss my line, did I, Rose? Even though I couldn't see."

"No, you didn't. Mum and Dad are getting some gingerbread. They're saving you a bit."

"It was good, wasn't it, Rose? Mr Smith wrote it."

"Yes, it was very good," she glanced at Mr Smith and the sides of her mouth twitched. The ribbon gave and she pulled it off, lifting the edge of the tea-towel to peer at her brother. "All done."

"Thanks. Can I get some gingerbread now, sir?"

"'Course you can, Josh. Off you go."

Josh darted out from behind the curtain and could be heard calling his mother and father who were on the other side of the hall. Rose was twisting the tea cloth in her hands.

"It really was very good, Mr Smith."

"James," he said. "Call me James. Mr Smith makes me feel so old."

She smiled tightly and started towards the curtain. "Excuse me, I should go and find Mum and Dad."

"I've been wondering when I'd see you again. I was hoping you'd come tonight."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Although I think Josh should have been Joseph."

"Yes. Well. between you and I, I think you're right. Poor William Cotton got terribly tongue-tied, didn't he? Look, Rose, I was wondering, it's the last day of term for me too and you've no idea how exhausting a nativity can be. I feel I've deserve a drink and I think you do too."

"What for?"

"For sitting through William's five minute opening line. For untangling your brother. For our version of mulled wine."

"I haven't had any."

"Well, there you go. You haven't had the Christmas rite of mulled wine and I don't recommend ours. What do you say?"

She found herself smiling slowly and nodding.

"Don't know about you," he added. "But I could murder a bag of chips as well…"


	3. Click

_**The Wasteland  
**_**Chapter Three: Click**

Author's Note: Just to clarify, this fic is actually a companion piece to _Proof_, in that I say that for the Doctor, "Rose Tyler has become a wasteland" and that's where I got the idea for the title from because I think that's how Rose feels about this world. Then, because whenever I hear the word "wasteland" I think of the poem, I thought I'd include epigraphs. Hopefully they add a little detail to the story.

* * *

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not  
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither  
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,  
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

- _The Wasteland_

by T.S. Eliot

* * *

Her mother worried, her father worried about whether to be worried. But after that first night, Rose didn't worry. She knew why they were anxious, why they gave her those funny looks when she went out with James, but they didn't talk about it.

She kept James away from her parents as much as possible because her mother still went white when she saw him and had to stop herself calling him "Doctor." And her father would study him in that hard way, sizing him up, trying to figure out what he was.

The click came in March while she was loading the washing machine. That's the only way Rose could have described it. Like two pieces of a jigsaw snapping together. Something that had been swimming vaguely around in the back of her mind since the night of Nativity suddenly swelled up and became a conscious realisation.

This was another universe – one where the Doctor didn't exist, couldn't exist. And James was just James. He wasn't a Time Lord. He wasn't the last of anything. He had two sisters – one older and one younger. And he liked to eat prawn cocktail flavour Skips when he was watching a film and he had far too many books that spilled off his bookshelves all over his tiny flat. He made good tea, but terrible coffee. She had even found an old, soft Rich Tea biscuit down the back of his sofa.

At work, he wore suits, similar to the Doctor's smart casual pinstripe, but when he was with her, he wore jeans, trainers, t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts. On weekends, he had stubble because he generally forgot to shave. He had that same darting, excitable way of talking, but it wasn't about nuclear scoops or frozen seas or children in gas masks – it was about Sebastian Faulks and Peter Jackson. But it churned Rose up into the same flurry of excitement.

He talked about himself more than the Doctor had ever done. She knew everything she knew about him, about his family, his childhood, because he had told her. He was open, he was a warm and sweet and radiated kindness. In comparison to James, the Doctor seemed reserved.

Rose closed the washing machine and phoned James. She said three words: "I'm coming over."

* * *

They made love for the first time in his flat, with the rain clattering outside, on that sagging sofa in front of the glow of the electric fire. When he opened the door, he wasn't the Doctor and she was cold and wet. When he held her, the dampness of her clothes sank through his and they had no other choice but to remove them.

It was mid afternoon when they got up and he gave her a faded Beatles t-shirt. She pulled it on, combing her hair back with her fingers and he wandered into the kitchen in only his boxer shorts and white-grey socks.

She brushed her fingers along the shelves, noting the titles.

"History buff, eh?" she said, turning to him to take the cup of coffee he offered her. "I'd never noticed before, but you've got tons of history books here."

"I took it at university, I wanted to be a lecturer."

"So why are you teaching five-year-olds?"

"My sister Claire had her son when I was in my first year," he sat down, propping his feet on the coffee table. "I've never been exactly good with children and I would talk to him like he was an adult and then, as he got older and started asking questions, I realised I was teaching him. There was something about telling him things he had never known. So, when I graduated, I decided to take a teaching diploma. It's that look of wonder that I love. And, for all I'm terrible with kids, I like them. They seem to like me, so we rub along all right."

"Josh adores you," she straightened the t-shirt and curled up next to him, swinging her legs over his lap.

"He's a clever kid. Got an amazing imagination."

"So, you've given up on history then?"

"Oh, no. I write in my spare time. I'm working on a book. Not a normal textbook, there's stories in it too, from the people who were there."

"There?"

"In the trenches. I've always been fascinated with the World Wars, but what I'm writing is about the First World War. My great-grandparents married the year before the war and my grandfather was born just after it started. He joined the RAF and died in 1940. My father never knew him."

"That's awful."

"That's war. My great-grandfather never fought in the First World War. I think he would have been a conscientious objector had he not been found to have a heart condition. He didn't believe in fighting."

"You knew him?"

"No, I've got his journal. He was a teacher at a boy's school, that's where he met my great-grandmother. Most of the boys went to war. He writes about the waste of life in his journal… You know, the last date I went on was to this club with a girl, awful place, far too loud. And she wanted to dance which was fine when the slow number was on, but then _Take Me Out _came on, you know?" he hummed a bit of it and Rose, bemused at this bizarre change of subject, nodded. "And I just couldn't dance to it."

"You can't dance?" she was still confused, but now she was trying not to smile. The corners of her lips were twitching.

"Can't dance? I'm awful. But it wasn't that, it was Franz Ferdinand. It always strikes me as strange that they named themselves that."

"Why?"

"Well, it was his death that started the war, you know."

"Really?"

"Yes," he put his mug down and twisted to face her. "He was shot by a Yugoslav student and because of all the treaties; we went to war over it. The trenches, Passchendaele, the treaty of Versailles. All because of Archduke Franz Ferdinand."

"I didn't know that."

"Not many people do. They always think that it was like the Second World War – that there was someone like Hitler to stop. I don't think they stop and wonder who this madman might have been. You know, I sometimes wonder what his family felt about it. I mean, how did they feel knowing their son or their brother or father's death sparked a world war? I suppose it must be… well, nice, to think that he was that important. But after a while, pretty soon, I would imagine, it must have been awful. Because in the face of such destruction you have to realise that he was just one man – he wasn't worth all that death and destruction, that ridiculous treaty. It must be awful to have to face the insignificance of someone you love."

"You should write that down."

"I have. I'm thinking of including a chapter on him and his family. It's not very scholarly, but it fascinates me. One man changed the world. And I bet he had eggs for breakfast the day he died."

"I bet you would have liked to talk to your great-grandfather about that."

"Yes," he paused then and she saw his eyes dart to the book case. "Rose, can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

"It's sort of… well, it's sort of a family secret. I've never told anyone about it. But I think I should tell you – it involves you."

He gave her legs a nudge and she shifted, sitting cross-legged as he took a book from the book case and put it in her hand. She opened it and smiled at the scrawled title on the first page. _A Journal of Impossible Things._

"He wrote that the year he met my great-grandmother and he added to it over the years, but the bulk of it was written in 1913. Look," he turned a few pages for her. "See that, about the shadow coming over Europe? That was written in 1913. No one knew anything was coming, but he wrote about it, a year before it happened."

"That's amazing. But you said he was a history teacher, perhaps he saw it coming, all the politics, what it would lead to. A lucky guess…"

"That's what I used to think. I used to think what a clever man he must have been to predict something like that. But I don't think that anymore. Rose, I think he _knew_ things."

"Why?"

"Because, well, look."

He flicked another page for her and she was looking at herself. Gasping, she skimmed the other pages. The TARDIS, the sonic screwdriver and there, right there on the page, a mere sketch, but instantly recognisable – her first Doctor.

"I have to go."

She was already getting up and pulling her jeans on, crawling under the coffee table to get her shoes.

"Rose, please," he grabbed hold of her elbows, turning her to face him, like that day in the playground. "I didn't mean to scare you."

She glanced at the journal, open on the sofa, the black and white sketch of the TARDIS burning into her eyes.

"It's not that. I have to go, please, there's something I need to do."


	4. Expelliarmus

_**The Wasteland  
**_**Chapter Four: Expelliarmus**

Author's Note: The chapter title is from _Harry Potter_, I've already used it a few times in the fic. In HP it's a charm that disarms people, knocking their wands out of their hands, so I'm using it here to mean "disarmed."

Hopefully this chapter will clarify everything!

* * *

Who is the third who walks always beside you?  
When I count, there are only you and I together  
But when I look ahead up the white road  
There is always another one walking beside you.

- _The Wasteland_

by T.S. Eliot

* * *

She used Torchwood to find him.

She started with James Smith and worked backwards. His father was called Alfred and his grandfather had been Eric. And then there was the History teacher, John Smith. Who, according to the marriage certificate, had married Matron Joan Redfern in December 1913.

She skimmed further back because she was certain that the line would end there because John Smith couldn't write and draw those things and have parents, couldn't be entirely human. But there was his birth certificate glowing on the screen in front of her. John Edward Smith. Born February 1882 to Sidney and Verity Smith in Nottingham.

Impossible. She hunted further back, remembering that man she had met years ago, who had traced her first Doctor back to the Titanic. He'd had a picture of him with the family he saved, so if she could only get a picture of John Smith, she would know for certain.

She froze when she found a picture of him. It was tiny, grainy, right at the bottom of an old local newspaper, announcing the marriage of Mr Smith to Joan Redfern. He was beside a pretty woman, they were both smiling. They were really joyous smiles. He was married. He was happy. He was John Smith. He would go on to have two children, Ellen and Eric. Eric would die in World War II, leaving baby Alfred fatherless.

_It doesn't make sense._

And Rose knew the only way it would ever make sense was if she had that journal.

* * *

This time, she remembered an umbrella and tucked it under her arm, dripping over those same white-grey socks.

"Why do you need the journal?"

"I have to read it, James. I need to know what it says."

"Why? Rose, what on earth is going on?"

"I have no idea and that's why I need to read it."

"Don't you think I deserve to know too? After all, I am his relative."

"All right. But please, James, I have to see it."

His eyebrows were drawn together by his frown and eventually he stepped back and let her in, taking the umbrella off her and going into the kitchen where he dumped it in the sink.

They sat on the sofa and read it together, shoulders touching and heads bumping. They lingered over the picture of a watch, slowly deciphering the tiny, cramped handwriting.

"'The Family of Blood,'" she read. "'They need a Time Lord. They expire in three months.'"

She scrabbled through the small pile of print-outs and found the marriage certificate. 11th December 1913.

"When did they meet?" she asked. "John and Joan, I mean."

"Oh, I don't know. About September or October, I suppose. They got engaged at a village dance, they hadn't known each other very long at all and the dance, well, I think Great Aunt Ellen said it was the middle of November. So I suppose he started at the school in September, beginning of the school year," he was twisting his lips together, trying to think.

"So they got married three months later. After the Family of Blood expired."

"Rose, what are you talking about?"

"Don't you see? All of this is real!"

"Look, I know there are coincidences galore here, what with the stuff about the war and then that picture of you – but real? That's going a bit far, Rose."

"I know it's real because I've seen it. See him?" she scrabbled about for that picture of the Doctor as she originally knew him. "I knew him. He saved my life and then I went travelling with him, in that box, the TARDIS. He had that, a sonic screwdriver, and then, something happened and he had to change. All these pictures, they're all him. They must be all the men he was before I met him. And when he changed, he changed into you."

"Me? Oh, come on, Rose. I was born in West Hampstead," he was grinning at her, but his eyes weren't crinkling, so she knew he was worried.

"No, not _you_. But _like_ you. That's why I didn't come near the school for months, because you look like him. And I couldn't bear it."

"Why not?"

"Because I got lost. There was a battle; we were trying to stop these… things. Daleks and Cybermen and I – I suppose I fell. I fell through a breach in time and space and landed here. My mum too, and Mickey. In my world, my Dad was dead. In this world, my Mum was dead. But here I've got them both. But _I_ never existed here. I'm trapped here; I can't go back to him. My birth certificate, my passport, my drivers license, they're all faked by Torchwood because I'm stuck here. I can't go back. In my world, I'm officially listed as dead."

"What's Torchwood?"

Rose blinked at him, slightly surprised that of all the things she had just said, he would pick up on that.

"It's where I work. Where Dad works. His business practically runs itself, so he spends most of his time at Torchwood. We keep an eye on alien activity, we sort things out. So when stuff like that spaceship hitting Big Ben happens, we take care of it."

"This is nuts, Rose."

"I know. But look, don't you see? This is _true_. You've always thought it was strange that he knew about the war coming, haven't you? And when you realised I was here too, you must have known."

"So what you're saying is that my Great-Grandfather was this Doctor? That he was an alien – a Time Lord?"

"No. I don't know what he was. _If_ he was. We'll never know. I don't think so. I mean, the Doctor can't get through and there's only one Doctor. There was a Pete Tyler in my world and one here, but there's no Doctor in this world. Something must have happened in my world, something that echoed here. Only here, it was human. That happens sometimes, things echo and the other possibilities happen in other dimensions. At least, that's what the Torchwood professors say."

"Expelliarmus," he was staring into the middle distance, as though he was watching things slide into place.

"You what?"

"Josh. He was drawing a picture of himself fighting a monster. And he tried to say that it was a wand he was drawing. But it wasn't, was it? It was that sonic screwdriver thing."

"Yes. He knows. I've told him the stories."

"And your mum. That's why she was so shocked. She kept stopping when she was saying my name – I thought she had a stutter."

"You believe me?"

"How can I not believe you? It's there in black and white. If this Doctor knew these things were going to happen in your world, well, it makes sense that John Smith would know, even if he only dreamed it. He dreamed you. You're here. That's all that matters to me."


	5. Cured

_**The Wasteland  
**_**Chapter Five: Cured**

Author's Note: This is quite a quick wrap-up because everything else I wrote seemed to come over all schmaltzy and it just wasn't working because I imagine James to be quite romantic, but quite Doctor-y too, and elaborate speeches just aren't his thing. Also, I think the epigraph (THANK YOU, T.S. Eliot) goes a way to explaining things between them. Particularly Rose's feelings.

To clarify, James is entirely human and he isn't the Doctor. The idea is that while in our universe (meaning, the one we see on screen every Saturday) he chose to return to being the Doctor, but his love for Joan echoed in Rose's universe. A John Smith was born in Rose's universe, just a regular guy - an echo of our Doctor, but a human one. He went on to live the life our Doctor glimpsed.

* * *

My friend, blood shaking my heart  
The awful daring of a moment's surrender  
Which an age of prudence can never retract  
By this, and only this, we have existed.

_- The Wasteland_

by T.S. Eliot

* * *

Bad Wolf Bay was different to how she remembered. It wasn't as cold; it didn't feel like the world had turned its back on her. James was helping her across the rocks and they held hands as they strolled on the beach.

"I'm sorry that I brought you here."

"It's all right," James dropped her hand and stood watching the water lap at the toes of his trainers. "Everyone's got demons they need to lay to rest."

"I haven't been here in six years. We stood right there," she pointed to a patch of sand and wandered over to it. "I mean, I stood. He wasn't really there. When he was gone, there weren't even footprints. I hate holograms. They're always trouble."

She reached her hand out, as she had done that day. She was about to let it swing back to her side when James caught it and stood in front of her, where the Doctor had stood.

"I thought we could get the next flight out of here. I checked and there's one leaving for Italy in the morning."

She looked around slowly and nodded. Then she turned back to him and held his hands tightly.

"Hey. Rose. You're not alone."

"I know," her fingers clenched in his again. "I love you, James Smith."

He looked surprised. She wasn't sure if those were startled, happy tears in his eyes or if it was the wind that caused them. But he smiled at her, slowly; the edges of his lips curling right up either side of his nose.

"So this is it then, my first chance to say it?" her nails were driving dents into his palms. "Rose Tyler, I... " he looked awkward, young and shy. His mouth opened a fraction of a second before he said it. "I love you."

* * *

**_The End_.**


End file.
